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(In the end Jamie admitted to Catelyn he pushed Bran from the tower. Lannister Stark problem is a real problem, not a lie, and much less a LF's lie.)

I am saying there would have been no war without Littlefinger. Jon Aryn doesn't die and no Lannisters are even in Winterfell to push Bran out of the window. Agree there were problems, but it required the machinations of someone to turn that into an actual war.

I am just curious if there was a similar figure scheming to start a war in Robert's Rebellion.

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Similar to the War of the Five Kings. Technically it started when Catlyn abducts Tyrion but she never would have done that if not for Littlefinger's lie.

Now the key question is who lied?

Except it doesn't matter if Lyanna went willingly or not, the proverbial shit was still going to hit the proverbial fan. The daughter of house Stark, a Great house, the lord paramount of the nNorth, who is betrothed to the Lord of house Baratheon, a Great house, lord paramount of the Stormlands, is either abducted or runs away the crown prince of Westeros, the same crown prince wo is married and have children with a daughter of house Martell, a Great house, lord paramount of Dorne, who he not so long ago embarrassed by crowning the Stark daughter QoLaB in front of a large gathering of nobility instead of her. You have three great houses involved in this, each with the pride and honor of their houses at stake. Things were going to get very tense very quickly

Lyanna and Rhaegar running off together was going to throw the realm into chaos no matter if it was love or not. It was the tinder while Aerys actions were the spark.

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I am saying there would have been no war without Littlefinger. Jon Aryn doesn't die and no Lannisters are even in Winterfell to push Bran out of the window. Agree there were problems, but it required the machinations of someone to turn that into an actual war.

I am just curious if there was a similar figure scheming to start a war in Robert's Rebellion.

It was likely a similar thing, but we are not told that story.

In the end, I don't subscribe to the butterfly in one part of the world logic, like Hot Pie is guilty for LF's execution.

Lannisters harmed Bran. The truth is, a wild boar started the war. And as far as the characters, Renly did. Renlyi sought Ned's support before Ned sent a letter to Stannis. Ned declared for Stannis right then and there, and against Sansa. The war started on Robert's deathbed, by the Baratheons, and Ned simply declared, incorrectly.

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In the end, I don't subscribe to the butterfly in one part of the world logic, like Hot Pie is guilty for LF's execution.

Lannisters harmed Bran. The truth is, a wild boar started the war. And as far as the characters, Renly did. Renlyi sought Ned's support before Ned sent a letter to Stannis. Ned declared for Stannis right then and there, and against Sansa. The war started on Robert's deathbed, by the Baratheons, and Ned simply declared, incorrectly.

We could hear that story before it is all done.

GRRM did say everything about Robert's Rebellion would be revealed by the end of ASOIAF.

"We're not doing Robert's Rebellion either. I know thousands of you want that, I know there's a petition... but by the time I finish writing A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, you will know every important thing that happened in Robert's Rebellion. There would be no surprises or revelations left in such a show, just the acting out of conflicts whose resolutions you already know. That's not a story I want to tell just now; it would feel too much like a twice-told tale."

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(In the end Jamie admitted to Catelyn he pushed Bran from the tower. Lannister Stark problem is a real problem, not a lie, and much less a LF's lie.)

i think, in the book at least, the dagger likely belonged in robert's armory, and joff took it out and gave it to a cutpurse to go and kill brandon. yes its a tupid move, but joffrey isnt exactly the brightest crayon in the box. in the show, i think it was littlefingers. and he planted it in the hopes of then bliming on the lannisters, by playing off his old relationship with cat. whether or not bran died didnt matter to him. that ned's child, not his, and bran is male and doesnt loojk much like cat, as well as not being as important as robb politically.

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My problem lies in the fact that it validated Aerys’ execution of Rickard and Brandon Stark, showing that it was okay to kill someone without just cause. Plus, it makes Ned and Robert look like villains for going against Aerys for justified reasons; what else do you do when someone calls for your head?

I guess Viserys is right; “The dragon answers to no one.” I just hope it isn’t true.

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I think we are confusing wether the rebellion was justified with how it was actually started. Robert announced that Lyanna was abducted, thus prompting Brandon Stark to go demand her release.

The real question is did Robert know that Lyanna willingly left with Rhaegar or did he lie about that out of anger or pride?

Had Robert known/ accepted that Lyanna left willingly, Brandon would not have demanded her release, been killed, the rest of the seven kingdoms would not have rebelled, etc

Would Aerys have eventually done something else crazy enough to warrant such a rebellion? Possibly but we can't know for sure

Robert didn't announce anything. Where are you getting that idea from? How and why would he be announcing anything about Lyanna or Rhaegar? He was over at the Vale and in no position to even hear about it before Brandon did, as Brandon was in Riverrun and much closer to where it happened.

There is absolutely no indication that Robert, Ned or even Rickard did anything specifically about Lyanna being kidnapped or running off with Rhaegar. Brandon was the only one who did.

The rebellion started because Aerys horrifically executed Rickard, Brandon and most of Brandon's companions - including Jon Arryn's nephew and heir - and then demanded that Jon Arryn turned over his wards, Ned and Robert, who hadn'teven done anything at all, to be executed as well. And Robert wasn't the one who started the rebellion anyway - it was Jon Arryn, by refusing to obey Aerys and calling his banners instead.

Excuse me if I think that the issue of whether Lyanna went willingly or wven whether she married Rhaegar was pretty irrelevant at that point.

The line "Robert's Rebellion was built on a lie" is incredibly stupid and confirms that D&D are hacks who can't keep the story straight and don't even remember what happened in it.

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In the last episode of season 7, Bran the Almighty said "Robert's Rebellion was based on a lie", but I do not think this is true.

Yes: Lyanna was not abducted, and she followed Rhaegar willingly.

But since the rebellion didn't start because of this, but because King Aerys burned Rickard and strangled Brandon to death, and asked for the heads of Robert and Ned, it was not based on a lie. Jon Arryn did NOT raise his banners because the fiancée of his ward was "abducted", and no declaration of war was done on Rickard's/Brandon's parts either. The shit hit the fan when the Mad King decided he could kill whomever he wanted to.

One could argue that it started before that - that it started with Lyanna/Rhaegar running off, but in that case it started long before that, as Rhaegar crowned Lyanna QoLaB a year past. And before that, the Mad King's wife gave birth to Rhaegar. THAT has to be the start. Oh, no, wait ... she also had parents, et cetera. Something important always comes after something else (unless Planetos' universe had a Big Bang as well, but you get what I mean).

The rebellion started because the Mad King was batshit insane and murdered people left and right (like the two hundred northmen with Rickard), and wanted to continue this. This is not a lie, and therefore Robert's Rebellion was NOT based on a lie.

What do you think?

You're correct.

I suppose the counter-factual is whether Brandon would have ridden to Kings Landing and demanded that Rhaegar come out and die, had he known that the elopement was consensual. I doubt if the Starks would have been happy at the idea of a royal wedding that was not sanctioned by the King, and which would inevitably have made enemies of both the Dornish and the Baratheons. So, the situation would have been very tense, but Aerys might not have started burning Starks and Arryns.

But, it was Aerys' executions that triggered the rebellion, in fact, he left his enemies no option but to rebel.

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I don't see a problem with the statement. The singular event that initiated the rebellion beyond no return was Brandon Stark marching to King's Landing and demanding that Rhaegar "come out and die" to open court. Surprise, Aerys seized him. Of course this played to the mad king's paranoia and he called Rickard Stark to court and the die was cast after that incident. How Brandon learned of the "kidnapping" is a mystery, though that would seem to have some littlefingerprints all over it. Robert then learned of said "kidnapping" and initiated the rebellion, Ned was on board given what happened to his brother and father, and the rest is history.

Would a rebellion happened absent this due to the Mad King's nature? Most likely. Even Rhaegar was plotting against his father, to say nothing of everyone else with a grievance against Aerys. But that wouldn't be "Robert's" rebellion.

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I don't see a problem with the statement. The singular event that initiated the rebellion beyond no return was Brandon Stark marching to King's Landing and demanding that Rhaegar "come out and die" to open court. Surprise, Aerys seized him. Of course this played to the mad king's paranoia and he called Rickard Stark to court and the die was cast after that incident. How Brandon learned of the "kidnapping" is a mystery, though that would seem to have some littlefingerprints all over it. Robert then learned of said "kidnapping" and initiated the rebellion, Ned was on board given what happened to his brother and father, and the rest is history.

Would a rebellion happened absent this due to the Mad King's nature? Most likely. Even Rhaegar was plotting against his father, to say nothing of everyone else with a grievance against Aerys. But that wouldn't be "Robert's" rebellion.

No. The singular event that initiated the rebellion beyond no return was Aerys demanding that Jon Arryn hand him over his wards, Ned and Robert, so he could execute them, just like he had done to Ned's father and brother.

As for Brandon Stark, what makes you think he would have cared if his sister had been kidnapped or run off with Rhaegar, and that this would have made any difference to him? I mean, maybe there's a slim chance he had a mindset that women's agency was super important rather than a patriarchal mindset about family honor, but I really wouldn't bet on it, all things considered.

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I suppose the counter-factual is whether Brandon would have ridden to Kings Landing and demanded that Rhaegar come out and die, had he known that the elopement was consensual. I doubt if the Starks would have been happy at the idea of a royal wedding that was not sanctioned by the King, and which would inevitably have made enemies of both the Dornish and the Baratheons. So, the situation would have been very tense, but Aerys might not have started burning Starks and Arryns.

But, it was Aerys' executions that triggered the rebellion, in fact, he left his enemies no option but to rebel.

So the fact that the executions and subsequent orders for the deaths of Robert and Ned caused the rebellion makes Bran a liar.